World briefs 1/4/07

India orders probe into serial killings

NEW DELHI -- The Indian government on Wednesday ordered an inquiry into how local authorities responded to the disappearances of 17 women and children from impoverished backgrounds who were found dismembered in an affluent New Delhi suburb last week. Relatives of the victims, nearly all of whom came from families of poor migrant workers, say police repeatedly brushed off their complaints as people vanished over the past two years from a well-to-do neighborhood in Noida. Police have already suspended seven mid- and lower-ranking officers because of the killings, and the federal government on Wednesday ordered a committee to investigate the case, said N.C. Joshi, a spokesman for the Ministry for Women.

NATO: Too many civilians killed in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- NATO said Wednesday that it killed too many Afghan civilians during fighting last year against resurgent Taliban militants, but that the Western alliance was working to change that in 2007. The acknow-ledgment came one day after President Hamid Karzai's latest plea for foreign forces to use maximum caution following the deaths of two civilians, reportedly involving NATO troops.

North Korea's foreign minister dies at 78

SEOUL, South Korea -- Paek Nam Sun, North Korea's foreign minister and the country's top diplomat for nearly 10 years, has died at the age of 78, official media reported Wednesday. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed his condolences, the North's Korean Central News Agency reported. The one-sentence dispatch did not provide any more details, including when or how he died.

3,000 soldiers, police to fight drugs in Tijuana

TIJUANA, Mexico -- Mexico is sending some 3,300 soldiers and federal police officers to fight drug gangs in the crime-plagued border city of Tijuana, which has become a major smuggling route for cocaine and methamphetamine entering the United States. The Tijuana force consists of 2,620 soldiers, 162 marines and 510 federal police, and will be backed by 28 boats, 21 planes and nine helicopters.

-- From wire reports